The present invention relates to a print system including an application service provider.
Recently, a service model called an application service provider (ASP) becomes popular. In a print system using an application service provider, application programs are stored in an application server that can be accessed through the Internet. When one of the application programs is needed, a client computer gets the application program from an application server and executes it. The data obtained is sent to and printed by a printer.
When data obtained by the application program in the application server is printed, the data is converted to a general format such as hypertext markup language (HTML) so that it can be displayed by a browser in the client computer. A printer driver for the client computer receives and converts the data with a print description language (PDL) and sends the PDL data to a printer for the client computer. However, information that cannot be displayed by the browser cannot be printed. For example, image data having a high resolution may not be printed at the high resolution. Therefore, it is preferable that the application program in the application server generates print data.
Though it is preferable that an application program in the application server generates print data, if the application program is not activated, it cannot make the print data. Therefore, when data made by the application program is printed out, a client computer gets the application program from the application server, activates the application program to make print data of the application program. Next, a printer driver generates print data and sends it to a printer.
However, application programs held in the application server include, besides software programs such as a word processor or a spreadsheet of smaller data sizes, many management software programs not used frequently by a business user such as group wares for personnel management, financial management, data management such as data warehouse, of a larger data size. Then, if such an application program of larger data size is get by a client computer only for printing the data, it will take a long time for the processing and a longer time until print out thereof. Further, it is a problem that the client computer is not freed for a long time for getting the application program and for sending the print data to a printer. Further, the processing load in the application server increases due to increase in transmission times because for each printing the application program is sent to a client and sent back just after the print data is generated. Further, because a printer has a status varying with time, printing may not be possible when a print job is received. For example, if many print jobs are reserved, when a new job is transmitted, a print out may not be possible. This is ascribable to an error status or a status when another print job from a different client computer is being received. In such a case, when the application server accesses the printer though the Internet, the printer cannot accepts a job, so that it may reject to receive the job. This is unproductive access from the application server.
In order to solve these problems, it may be suggested to generate print data in the application server and send it to a printer. However, a printer has information on the configuration thereof inherent for each setting site such as default paper cassette, available paper sizes discharge option, and the like. In a network environment wherein the application server and a printer communicate through the Internet, the application server does not know the above-mentioned configuration information on the printer for the client. Thus, it is difficult to generate control information in correspondence to the configuration information on the printer (not dependent on the application program). Further, print control information according to the printer configuration information may be set for each client. For example, as to a printer wherein a print of 1200 dots per inch (dpi) can be outputted, a client may set print mode at 600 dpi as default mode, but another client may set print mode of 400 dpi as default mode. If print control information such as output resolution is different when an application program generates print data, it is a problem that print data cannot be generated according to the print control information requested by the client. Therefore, a printer server for a printer requested by a client for printing may not be kept in the application server.
In a network print system disclosed in Japanese Patent laid open Publication 2000-330734, a fire wall exists between a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) server and a client computer, so that data cannot be sent directly from the server to the printer. In order to remove the limitation due to the fire wall in this environment, mode setting and conversion to a page description language are performed in the client side, and the mode setting information and the print data are transmitted to a printer. In this transmission, a format recognized by the server is adopted, and the server sends the print data to which printing is requested. On the contrary, in the invention explained below, the server performs conversion to a page description language. Further, the above-mentioned server manages protocols, but the invention relates to a server managing application programs. In a printer disclosed in Japanese Patent laid open Publication 2000-132378, the printer sends a printer driver therefor to a host in a network. The printer recognizes an operation system of the host and sends an appropriate driver to the host.